Plus, an early morning “skyscraper” amongst the real skyscraper skyline!

With the big time change this weekend, it felt like I had more time to ride this morning.
And it didn’t hurt any that it wasn’t freezing cold this morning… or that the sunrise
was once again SPECTACULAR!!! I had a wonderful morning – and took over 130 photos!
It was hard to narrow it down to these.

For more pictures, check out today’s photo album on my Facebook page.
www.Facebook.com/FireWhenReadyPottery

Tonight I continued glazing… with still more to go!
This time it was inlaying glaze into the stamped textures on some new bowls
and taller slab vases. Tomorrow, I’ll do liner glazes and sprayed color accents.

It’s looking like the soda class’s latest kiln firing might be unloaded tonight?…
so I can actually do some loading of my kiln tonight too? Which would be ideal
to have more time to load “strategically” instead of rushing through it Tuesday
night after teaching class. Either way… my firing is on for Wednesday!!!

The following is a test. For the next sixty seconds we will be conducting a test of the
Emergency Blog Photo Update System… also known as “for some strange reason
my blog stopped uploading photos for no apparent reason”?! But now we’re back.
Or at least enough for a “test” image upload to see if it works! Ready… set… upload!

And thanks again to Emily & Ian for helping me get my WordPress back on track!
It’s great to have tech-savvy friends who can help bail me out of my tech dilemmas.
And now I’ve got a LOT of catching up to do!

Technical difficulties resolved… and now retroactively catching up!

Tonight is the night we get to “Fall back” and get an extra hour to play!
With that “bonus” hour thrown into the mix, I decided to glaze up some of my long overdue
class demo pieces. I worked my way through my teacher shelf and glazed about 2/3 of the
pieces that have been stacking up there. Some on which were made two or three sessions
ago! My lack of glazing has kind of become a running joke with many of my students. I get
close enough by waxing the bottoms, teaching about glazing, explaining the processes and
pitfalls… and then promptly put the waxed pots back on my shelf because I’ve run out
of time from talk too much! Yep, I like to ramble, and not glaze…

Technical difficulties resolved… and now retroactively catching up!

Tonight I tackled my new holiday ornaments.
Again, starting with inlaid glaze in the stamped textures, gently wiped off…
and some iron oxide painted onto the “caps” of each ornament. Then a bit of glaze
sprayed on some of them and some fun in the soda kiln… and voila’… ornaments!!!

Also this evening, I unloaded another bisque kiln! Which, according to the calendar,
will be my last batch of new work for the Holiday Home Show… which is now just
two weeks away! So, with new bisque coming out nice & warm… more glazing to come!

Technical difficulties resolved… and now retroactively catching up!

With my soda kiln less than a week away, I’m now in “full-on glazing mode.”
Luckily, since it’s a soda kiln, glazing is pretty much inlaying glaze into my stamped
textures. So I paint on a layer of temoku glaze, then gently wipe off the top surface with
a damp sponge – leaving the temoku in the recesses of the stamps. I find assembly-line
is my favorite method… thanks to the brilliant Henry Ford!

Then a quick liner glaze, some sprayed on glaze color accents and they’re good to go.

Oh yeah… plus some small pieces of wadding glued onto the bottom to keep the pots
from sticking to the kiln shelf during the atmospheric firing.

Technical difficulties resolved… and now retroactively catching up!

Freezing cold. Windy. Tons of clouds on the horizon.
So do I get up and freeze on my bike?… or roll over a go back to bed for another hour?
Yep… get up and pedal. After a couple of the most spectacularly colorful sunrises ever…
this morning was surprisingly gray, cloudy and yet still very beautiful. Especially with an
incredible crescent moon out over the water… and the clouds “layered up” on the horizon!

Okay, something’s going on here…
and I’m having some technical difficulties here on my blog!
For some strange reason, I can’t upload photos any more?!

Every time I try, I get an error message. I’m using WordPress for my blog
and I think it has something to do with Changing File Permissions… or something?!
Error message: “Unable to create directory. Is the parent directory writable by the server?”
What the heck does THAT mean?!

Hopefully I’ll be able to resolve this quickly… and then I’ll come back and post
all of the fun things that have been happening over the past few days!
Studio projects, stunning sunrises, inspirations, anecdotes and more!